Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/63

 ter. In 1869 54% of the population made their living in agriculture and only 31% in industry. But industry has been taking ever greater place in Bohemia, and the latest figures show that 42% of the people were employed in industry, 10.5% in commerce, and only 35.5% in agriculture. One of the conditions favoring industrial development is the fact that the Bohemian lands on account of the wealth and economic advancement of the people make an important home market for the industries which are not therefore mainly dependent upon the unstable export business.

Since the Bohemian lands are very fertile and excellently cultivated, one may expect to see a high development of those industries which get their material from the products of the farm. Beet sugar industry was early developed in Bohemia, and before the war the Bohemian and Moravian sugar mills supplied other Austrian lands, as well as the Balkan states and Great Britain with sugar. Bohemian hops and the barley of the famous Hana plain of Moravia laid the foundation for the justly merited fame of Bohemian beer. Of less importance, but still employing many people, is the wool industry based on Moravian sheep raising, the manufacture of alcohol from potatoes and the extraction of oil from rapeseed, linseed and poppyseed. Of much greater importance economically is the fact that all the Bohemian lands contain great wealth of coal; in fact without them Austria would have very little coal and even Central Germany which also lacks coal mines is supplied from Bohemia by way of the Elbe. Good iron ore in large quantities is also found in all the four Czechoslovak lands, so that the future independent Bohemia is well provided with the two indispensable elements of industrial strength.

Here are some figures on the mineral riches of Bohemia: Out of 27,658,147 tons of iron produced in all Austria, 9,322,588 were produced in the Bohemian lands. In the Middle Ages Bohemia had the richest silver mines of all the European countries, and even today silver and gold ores are mined in big quantities. Tin, uranium and wolfram ores are found of all the Austrian provinces only in Bohemia. Seventy-five per cent of the Austrian graphite is produced in Bohemia. But the figures on coal mining are of the greatest importance. The last available figures give the production of brown coal for all Austria as 252,650,000 tons, and of that total 80%, or 210,500,000 tons were mined in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. As for hard coal the production of which amounted in 1911 to 143, 98,172 tons, 88% of that was mined in the three Bohemian lands.

In beet sugar production the lands of the Bohemian crown have practically no competitor among the other Austrian provinces. Over half a million acres is planted to beets every year and 166 sugar mills produce yearly 6.2 million quintals of sugar. Three-fourths of that is exported; over four million quintals to England alone. Some forty million hectolitres of alcohol are produced from potatoes in 261 distilleries, most of it for industrial uses.

Bohemian beer has long been famous. There are 563 breweries with an annual production of somewhat over ten million hectolitres of beer; the share of the Pilsen breweries is slightly over a million. The export to foreign countries amounts to a million and a quarter which means that the annual consumption of beer in Bohemia is about 100 litres per person, a rather high figure, although not as high as the German average of 125 litres per person. A part of the beer industry is the production of malt in Moravia; the Moravian barley malt enjoys an excellent reputation and the annual export amounts to 115 mill, crowns.

The textile and kindred industries flourish in the Bohemian lands. Of 400,000 garment workers employed in Austria 180,000, about 45% were employed in the Bohemian lands. Of 548,000 employees of the textile industries fully 420,000 work in Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian factories. The value of the annual product of these Bohemian factories is 150 mill. dollars.

In steel industry Bohemian lands far excell the balance of the Hapsburg possessions. The Skoda gun works in Pilsen are known the world over; the machine factories of Prague and the big steel mills of Austrian Silesia and Moravia consume all of the Bohemian iron ore as well as great quantities of Styrian ore.

Among other important manufactories of Bohemia one must note the shoe factories of eastern Bohemia, the famous shops for the making of musical instruments, match factories and pottery and porcelain workshops. Lace making in Bohemia is an old